November 30, 2022 • 36 mins
Two callers this week believe their problems are in their current situations – one who is a self-proclaimed people pleaser, and the other, a returning caller who can’t seem to make progress in fixing her life. However, Iyanla notices that they’re both dealing with scattered thoughts. Both callers have been traumatized and must ask for the help they need to heal.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I am Younger, your host for this journey. I was
a hopeless love aholic but just could not get my
love to work. Then, after a series of heartbreaks and
deep heartache, I finally got clear about what love is
and what it is not. I want to share some
(00:22):
of what I've learned about love aholism. Welcome to the
Our Spot, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with
I Heart Radio. You know, sometimes I wake up in
(00:48):
the morning and I feel absolutely empowered. I feel divine
and blissful, and I think that I am the next
best thing to melt it butter on a pancake. And
then other days I wake up and I am truly
(01:11):
the wretched of the earth. I can remember every mistake
that I've made, every poor decision. I look out into
the world and I see road kill, and I think
that's my fault. The rising cost of gas, that's my fault.
Somebody's kids lost their tooth on the playground, and everything
(01:33):
is my fault. I don't think I'm alone in this experience.
But here's the distinction. On those days that I'm down
on myself, beating up on myself forgetting about all the
glorious work that I've done to heal myself. On those
days when I feel like I've totally missed the mark
(01:57):
and I need to go back and start all over.
Rather than accepting that to be the truth, I observe
it and I say, wow, I wonder where that's coming from.
Oh my goodness, look at what's up for me today.
But I'm also aware that there are many of us
who have those bad days and get stuck in them,
(02:21):
get stuck in what we haven't done, what we can't do,
what we don't do, and we use that as a
bat to beat ourselves down. So if you're one of
those people that are stuck in a bad day that
has been going on for sixteen years, I want to
say this, you can only solve the problem from the
(02:43):
level from what you're looking at it. If you're down
on yourself, down in the sub sub sub basement, looking
at yourself, you can only solve the problem from the
sub sub basement. If you're in the you know, the
dungeon of your life looking at yourself, you can only
(03:04):
solve the problem from the dungeon. And what many of
us don't understand is those days when you're down there,
it's simply because there's something coming up that you're ready
to heal. Now, you don't have to heal it by yourself.
You don't have to heal it on your own. You
(03:25):
don't even have to know what it is. But you
have to know that the dungeon days, the sub sub
basement days, the beat yourself up with a bad days,
those are days when something's coming up that needs to
be healed, and sometimes you need help. My caller today
(03:47):
has been in the dungeon of the sub basement and
she's done a great job, but today she's reaching out
for help. Let's take a greetings, beloved, welcome to the
R spot. How can I support God assists you today
(04:08):
as you face your relationship challenge, issue, problem, whatever it is.
Thank you so much, Really appreciate, appreciate you're taking time
to speak with me. Um. The relationship issue is with myself.
I think I understand that when I don't have a
relationship that I'm happy with with myself and I pretend
(04:31):
that outwardly, it always crumbles. And so my relationship problems
with me tell me how it manifests. Because so very
often a relationship issue is a relationship with yourself. It
just shows up with other people. But tell me how
that shows up in your life. Where do you see it?
(04:51):
How do you see it? How does it show up?
It manifests as me being a people pleaser, taking on
roles where I'm be more forgiving than my inner body
is really wanting me to to listen to in the
manifest of me not being able to trust myself as well.
So I may say yes knowing the answer is no.
(05:12):
I may want to say something where I I'm not happy,
and I may withhold that because I want to be
in trouble and I don't actually feel maybe that I
have taken up space. Okay, wow, I want you to
hear this with all of the love and respect, just
(05:32):
in my listening of what you are sharing. I often
say to my students that self diagnosis is misdiagnosis because
you you have diagnosed your problem and come up with
the solution. You. I don't understand why you're calling me.
(05:53):
You know you got I'm calling because I know the
problem is trauma and all of your speaking and your diagnosis,
I heard you say this, I don't want to be
in trouble. That's a trauma response. So somewhere in your experience,
(06:20):
perhaps growing up. It had to be growing up saying
what you wanted to say or what you needed to say,
standing up for yourself, asking for what you needed or want.
It wasn't met with warm and fuzzies. Well there was
no one to ask a young there was no one there.
(06:44):
I I My traumas are um sexual traumas and family
members um absent moms, um absent dad. Both have used
drugs and so yes, it's trauma, but not not that
I don't want to get in trouble, but I want
to find a place where I fit in al though,
you know, I want to release that guilty and shame
of not sitting in and I want to be able
(07:05):
to translate that into me being able to have family,
village people who want to stick around me despite me
maybe not having a mom and dad for example, or
me uh sometimes not always being um able to say no.
But mostly it's trauma from like not not having anyone
(07:26):
to ask, And in my attempts to examine that and
try to put it down, I guess that's stuff like no.
But I also tried to take on too much like
I was a victim as a child. You know, I
should have been nurtured, But that's not a Is that
a God given right that I'm supposed to be nurtured?
You know it makes me play that will advocate with myself.
So let me ask you a question, beloved, thank you
(07:48):
for your sharing. Where can you imagine? Where do you
think that the trauma exists within you? Where is it?
My My heart hurts because I didn't have someone to
comfort me. In fact, I had someone kind of turning
the cheek on me. And it hurts my feelings a lot.
But my heart aches about it because it is reality
(08:11):
and my mom could only get what she could get.
And you know, at the end of the day, life
does happen that way. My heart aches with so your
heart aches, and then you have the thought that tells
you why your heart is aching? Is that? Is that?
Would that be? So? Are you open to the possibility
that your trauma exists in your mind? Now that doesn't
(08:35):
mean you don't have a physical or an emotional response
to it, But are you open to the possibility that
your trauma exists in your mind? And I do think
it's in my mind. So are you open to the possibility?
I want you to hear this from a place of
loving concern and respect. Are you open to the possibility
(08:57):
that you are thinking with a trauma to eyes and
disease mind? Exactly it? Okay, breathe, I want you to
breathe through that. Tell me, tell me what's happening right now?
Tell me what's happening. Yeah, it's sad that I know
this and I can't do anything about it with Wait
(09:19):
a minute, Wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute,
wait a minute. Breath. Take a breath, Take a breath.
Hear me. I want you to hear this. Good. You
are thinking with a traumatized and a diseased mind. There
(09:41):
is no way that you can figure this out because
the same traumatized mind that remembers the trauma is the
same traumatized mind you're trying to use to get the results.
So you're diagnosing yourself with a traumatized mind. You're writing
the prescription with the traumatized mine. You're questioning, judging, challenging
(10:08):
yourself with a traumatized mind. Can you receive what I
just said to you? And so what I want you
to hear me say from a place of loving concern
and respect is stop it. Just stop it, just stop it.
That's it. We'll talk about that when we come back.
(10:39):
Welcome back to the our spot. Let's pick up where
we left off. First of all, your first prescription is,
I don't care if you're talking to yourself, to your son,
to anybody. You must speak in ten words of less okay,
because what happens is you're spinning. You start and then
(11:01):
you go in and in and in and in. You're
you're on a hamster. You you're circulating the on the
thoughts over and over. That's how you escape the trauma. Yeah,
you have to stop it. And the way you're going
to stop your mind from running it shut your mouth.
(11:22):
Tell me what you hear me saying, because I don't
want you to. I don't want to hamste in the
wheel to start spinning. Tell me what you hear me saying.
You don't have to repeat the words that I said,
but I want to know what you are hearing me
say to you. What I'm hearing is that I am
finding ways to cope with my trauma and so many
(11:44):
words going in and out of what you know, what
you feel, and I really just need to be still.
Stop going down this rabbit hole of trauma. If you
want to stop it. You got to stop trying to
escape it. Okay, now that's not what I said, but
that's what you heard, and that's what I needed to know.
(12:06):
I needed to hear what you what you were listening to,
because I sense that you don't hear. You listen to
what's playing in your mind, and your mind has picked
up little tidbits of information and and things in your
quest to try to help yourself. How brilliant are you
(12:27):
that you said, Okay, I need to do something. Let
me do something. The challenges the same mind that holds
the trauma. And we've all been traumatized to some degree
or another. But it sounds to me like you've got
a physical imprint and impression of trauma, and emotional imprint
and impression of trauma, and then the mental imprint and
(12:50):
impression of trauma, and you're trying to figure out how
to heal or grow or develop up physically, mentally and emotionally.
But you're using the same traumatized mind. So what you're doing, beloved,
is you're re traumatizing yourself. I'm doing this and I
can't get it done. I get so far and it
(13:12):
doesn't happen, and I don't trust myself and I and
you re traumatize in yourself. So here's another possibility for
you to consider. First, let me make sure that that
made sense to you. Does that make sense? Because I
I want to be very mindful that you don't hear
me saying you're doing it wrong. No, I don't hear
(13:36):
that I'm doing it wrong. I hear that. That's ten words.
I don't hear you say I'm doing it wrong. Period.
Does you're getting ready to get on that train again
and go into an explanation. No explanation is required ten
words or less, otherwise you're gonna be on the train,
riding yourself into your triggers. You terrify yourself. That's what
(14:03):
it feels like to me, because you're so afraid that
you're not going to get it and you're not going
to do it wrong. I don't know if any of
that lands for you, but that's what it feels like
to me. Oh, yes, I am. I'm terrified that I'm
not going to get it right. Um, and I think
it's because like I thought this long, Uh, I'm terrified
(14:30):
that I'm not going to get it right. Period. That's
ten words. You don't need more than that, but I
want you to be aware of it. This is because
you've got to start catching this because even if you
get outside help, you're not going to be with them
all the time. There's still work that you have to do. Yeah,
you said a very clear statement, I'm terrified that I'm
(14:53):
not going to get it right now. Attached to that
thought is a feeling. It's the terror. It maybe the sadness,
and maybe the shame and maybe the guilt. But there
are things attached to that feeling. But rather than sit
and be present with the feeling, you jump right into
(15:15):
the next thing that justifies and talks about what it
is that you're feeling. You can't talk about your feelings,
You've gotta feel him. But what that does is it
really bypasses the feeling and takes you into the traumatized
mind that probably retriggers something that you didn't get right
(15:37):
and suffered for. Is that making sense to you now
that we know you're thinking with a traumatized mind that
remembers the trauma. That traumatized mind well use as your
speaking to re traumatize you. And that's why you're on
(15:59):
this perpetual circle of never seeming to get to where
you want to go, because you can only solve the
problem at the level at which you see it. So
you see the problem as no parents, not trusting yourself,
doing this, and not getting that. That's how you see
the problem, So you can only solve it from that level.
(16:19):
I want to take you to another level. Here's a level.
You're trying to parent yourself, but you've never been parented,
so you don't know how to do it. You're trying
to parent yourself. You're trying to raise yourself, guide yourself,
nurture yourself, nourish yourself, protect yourself, teach yourself. You're trying
(16:40):
to do all of that and it was never done
for you. So how do you expect to know how
to do that? I don't know how. I don't know
what I'm doing the thing I got. But since you
were never parented, you may not have an appropriate skill
set to do the parenting. And you have parented your
son of the best of your ability to give him
(17:02):
much of what you didn't have. And so when you
look at a traumatized mind and an empty parenting basket,
let's say, and the traumatized heart, the fact that you
would say a relationship issue is with myself. It's the
way the deceptive intelligence is re traumatizing you. Because if
(17:27):
I had a uh, if I had a good relationship
with myself, I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't do that.
I wouldn't be this, and this wouldn't happen. You need
outside intervention. Tell me what you've heard me say. Doesn't
matter what the words are. I just want to know
what you've heard me say. I'm my worst enemy in
(17:51):
terms of trying to hear my trauma because I'm doing
it from the trauma of mind and trying to parself
without parent you know, being parents, said, is not the
way that I'm going to get the satisfaction that I'm
looking for in terms of not uh feeling that this
trauma is impacting you know, my growth. Yeah good, Okay,
(18:17):
that's much better than the first time what I said.
So you've got a lot of information that's being processed
through a disease mind. Traumatized mind not a bad thing,
but I want you to understand it is unkind and
(18:41):
unloving to expect yourself to do something that you've never
been taught how to do. You're trying to heal yourself
and you've never really even been taught how to hear
yourself or take care of yourself. So I'm going to
give you this recommendation and encourage you to really hold
(19:05):
your feet to the fire when it comes to speaking
more than ten words. Okay, so tell me what you
know now that you didn't know when you call me.
I know that it is not my fault for the
way that I feel. Period. That's a sentence. Next thought,
I'm here because I'm ready to change the way that
I've been feeling. Period. Take a breath. Next thought, I
(19:31):
have a traumatized mind, and I have to be mindful
of not letting it be in control. Period. Good. Now,
take the breath. And I don't want you to say
you have a traumatized mind, because you have a brilliant mind.
The distinction is this, not that I have a traumatized mind,
(19:53):
but that my mind has been traumatized. Period. Yes, if
I'm not careful, it will control me and retraumatize me. Period.
Do you hear the difference? Yes, But you've done well.
Good for you. Thank you, even if in your mind
(20:15):
you have to say blah blah blah. Period. When you
find yourself down in six eighty seven words period. I
remember h m hmmm, or just say let me stop
right here, m hm, and I want to hear from
you okay, yes, thank you. Very often we don't realize
(20:45):
how upset we are with ourselves. We're upset with ourselves
that we didn't do it right. We're upset with ourselves
about our bad behavior. We've done so much and things
are still unfolding as they always have. Well, here is
something to consider. You cannot clear an upset with the
(21:06):
object of the upset. So if you are upset with you,
you are not going to be able to clear that upset.
Those are the days when you need help. When you're
in your pattern, you need help. When you're beating yourself up,
when you need help, and most of all, if you
(21:26):
are diagnosing yourself, you need help. And my next caller
is learning all about healing. We'll talk to her when
we come back. Welcome back to the our spot. I
(21:49):
am e Yanla, your host for this incredible journey into
the bowels and the belly and the heart of relationships
now out. I did a show some time ago with
a woman named Christie, and the nature of her relationship
with her son had shifted, but she hadn't, so we
(22:14):
talked about some of the nuances of parenting an adult child. Well,
my caller, Christie is checking in, so I want to
find out from her how things have gone and how
she's grown and what she's learned. So let's check in
with Christine. Hey ms, Christie, how are you doing this?
(22:38):
I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good? I'm good.
So catch me up. When I last spoke to you,
you were living with your son as a result of
some health challenges, and you were wanting to get out
and you were wanting to resolve some challenges with him.
So tell me where you are today and what's going on.
(23:00):
So just no, from the bottom of my heart, every day,
all day, I thank you for everything that you have done.
Where am I today? I am in Alabama with my
UM cousins, an older cousins who I call aunt and
m her daughter UM. And I realized along the way
that I made I feel like I made a mistake UM,
(23:23):
because there was a riff there with my son and
I for a while, his girlfriend, you know, started having
feelings or issues about me be my being there and
had put like a time limit on it and said,
you know, she wanted me to be in my own Well,
if I wasn't able to move out by August and
(23:44):
she would move away, and then they would you know,
he would move with me and then they would see
each other whatever. So I didn't want that to be
the issue. So at the end of the day, I
just um M. I was scheduled for breast cancer surge.
The insurance canceled like a few days before that, so
it was like a few things happened back to back,
(24:06):
so I ended up moving. Um or I'm sorry, calling
my cousin to say I just needed to leave Callahassee
because I didn't, you know, felt like this end was coming.
Still not employed, can't seem to I always have business ideas.
I can't seem to get any of those to catch
or move the motivation along the way. Because there's so
(24:26):
much going on, I get depressed. So I just decided
to come to Alabama and came to Alabama to work
on the medical aspect because I didn't want to have
half or need my son's girlfriend because he works ten
hour days to help me through after surgery, especially if
she doesn't want me to be there. Um. I hate
(24:48):
being at this point in my life where I'm forty
five and nowhere to go, and I just feel like I,
you know, at my at my breaking point. Oh, Mr Christie,
mm hmm. I hear a lot going on here, but
where I want to focus, if you are open to it,
(25:11):
is on this experience of cancer. Yes. I heard you
say you're having surgery for breast cancer tomorrow. Yes, ma'am
six am. I decided to do the whole complete mispect
to me, so I wouldn't have to so I could
be free. I just see it as like I'm I
feel like I'm I guess, like burdensome in a bad
(25:34):
situation and I'm living with this one and that one
and trying to like get up and I just can't
get up. It's just the whole thing is one thing.
I can't really look for it or look for a job,
but you know, I just it's just just a lot.
So I just want to be preistances I can be,
Mr Christie. A job should be the last thing on
(25:58):
your mind. You are fighting for your life, right, But
I don't have an income and that's the problem. No,
that's not the problem. The problem is you think that
you have to be of the solution, and you don't.
You're expecting something of yourself right now that is totally impossible. Ms. Christie,
(26:25):
you are facing the possibility of losing both of your
breast at six am tomorrow morning. Why are you worried
about an income? You got to know that God's got
your back. You've got to know that God's got your
back and that you will have what you need if
(26:48):
you stop trying to make it happen. Ms. Christie, Your life,
your life is more important, even if it's not the
life you want right now. If you have a life,
you can build it into what it is you desire.
But right now, you are fighting a disease body with
(27:09):
a disease mind. You've got to focus on your healing.
You've got to focus on recovery. You have to focus
on that. Yeah, right, And I heard you say that
you do want to be with your something, but his
girlfriend doesn't want you there any longer. So when I
go back now, I went back for one day and
(27:31):
it was fun, and then I went back for two
weeks earlier this month, she was gone for a part
of the time, and um, when she came back. You know,
we were always cordial, but I can feel I don't know.
I'm able to feel stuff, so I can feel the
friction and the you know, the dislike which hadn't said
(27:51):
anything to her or whatever. But I don't I don't know. Well,
it's a common situation, you know. One of y'all is
the other woman. Either his heart is with you and
she's the other woman, or she his heart is with
her and you're the other woman. So that's normal. It's
hard to have two queens on the same throne, and
(28:13):
the throne right now it is your son's heart, and
that's how it feels. Come here with me, and I'm
gonna hold you. I'm not gonna let you go in
this process. I want you to say this with me.
I need help. I need help. The help I need
is what The help I need is God? Yeah, and
(28:34):
what else family and support? Help I need is mental health.
The help I need is somebody to take care of me.
You're facing the possibility of losing both of your breast tomorrow.
You're not gonna be able to use your arms. How
are you gonna feed yourself? I know? And then I'm
(28:55):
around here, are you with people? Well? Because you're thinking
the disease mind in a disease body. When the body
is diseased and you're speaking about the experience of cancer,
it influences everything, so you can't see correctly, you can't
(29:15):
hear because you need help. You you need help. Is
your eighty two year old aunt gonna take care of
you after the surgery? Mom My cousin is whisky said
she's gonna do a lot of it. But the point
was that my aunt would be home, you know, all days,
so if I needed something, she can like get it
(29:36):
out the kitchen or bring me some water or things
like that. But I don't want to depend because you
need help. You can't you you will be dependent, So
get that out of your brain. I don't want to
depend upon. That's a disease thought. That's a disease thought.
I don't want to depend on. Until you heal, You're
(29:57):
gonna have to be dependent, So stop not liking it.
Stop it. You need help. You need help to get
you through recovery from your surgery. You need help to
be connected to grace and mercy to give you what
(30:18):
you need. I want to encourage you to surrender the
resistance of how it shows up. You need help and
the job ain't it right? Now? I have Bill I
know I do too, is worrying about the bill, going
(30:40):
to get it paid. What's more important, you're healing. But
I want you to hold this thought because my concern
is tomorrow morning, at six o'clock, they're gonna put some
drugs in your body to put you to sleep, and
they're going to remove, uh, your breast. That's my concern.
(31:03):
Is your son gonna be there for the surgeon? I
asked them and I got, uh, you know, wanted my
granddaughter to have an appointment, so that appointment happened to
be tomorrow. So I told him to just go ahead
and take care of her. And he's supposed to come
this weekend if he can. But you know whatever, So
I can suspect that you're feeling quite alone right now.
(31:25):
I do. I was always a people person and always
the one who's trying to hype everybody up and be
positive and optimistic, and that has just not been the
case with me during his journey. So tell me where
are you and your faith walk and your religious foundation?
Where do you sit in that? Where what are you
and your Catholic Baptists? You know nothing? So I say
(31:50):
it's Christian. But I don't know because I I follow
your teaching, which is like unity to me, unity teaching. Okay,
so you done. You then you know about Christ, you
know about Jesus, you know about the Holy Spirit, you
know about that God is the greatest. But I understand
when you say creator and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay,
(32:12):
Well you know I talked to a broad audience. I
want everybody to feel welcome. I don't care if you
call it Harry, it don't matter to me. I want
you to holess thought and I want you to say
it with me, and I want to see if you
can feel it in your body. God, say that God,
I surrender myself to you, take care of everything. I
(32:36):
surrender myself to you, take care of everything. And when
you pray that prayer, when you speak those words, you've
got to know that, no matter what it looks like,
God is taken care of it. Because you're focused in
your attention has to be on healing your body, and
(32:58):
that's going to create a major, massive shift in who
you are as a woman. I know that has to
be your focus and your priority to heal that, to
be with that, to observe that, to grow in that
to sit in that you don't have time to be
worrying about a job and a storage unit, and you
haven't made any mistakes. You have not, you haven't. You
(33:24):
were thinking what a disease? Minds right, grace, give yourself grace.
I want you to focus on your healing. Ms Christie,
I thank you so much for calling me back. We
can't even talk about you and your son because we're
not even gonna raise that issue. We're gonna focus on
your healing. Okay, yes, ma'am, Thank you. Ms. Christie, Thank
(33:47):
you so much for your time. There comes a moment
in our lives when we have to surrender to the
divine and trust and believe and know that it will
be taken care of. Because there comes a moment when
our humanness reaches its limits, but the Divine is always
(34:08):
there to open us up to greater possibility. Where where
where in our teaching, our our education, Where in our training,
our conditioning, our programming as human beings are we taught
how to move through some of the challenges that we
face in life. We're not. Ms. Christie is right there. God,
(34:31):
I surrender myself to you take care of everything. I
don't know how to do this. I don't know how
to do this. So Ms Christie can learn how to
be a better parent to her son when she learns
how to be a better child to the father. That's
a lesson that some of us really need to learn.
I know for myself, I had never been parented at
(34:54):
the physical level, so I didn't know how to be
parented by the divine If I was and parented by
my father, who I could see, my mother, my stepmother,
my aunt, my uncle who I could see, I had
no idea how to be parented by my source that
I couldn't see. So many of us I don't know
(35:14):
how to parent because we haven't been parented. And if
we haven't been parented at the physical level, we must
learn how to be parented by the Divine God. I
surrender Mrs Christie to you. She doesn't know how to
do this and I don't know how to help her.
(35:39):
All I can do is lover and surrender her to you.
God take care of everything. I hope this has been
helpful to someone, And if you have a question about
this or any other relationship issue, you can call me
live at seven seven five three zero seven seven seven
(36:00):
and SUCCE eight. Now be sure to follow me on
social media for all of the calling times and until then,
stay in peace and not pieces. The R Spot is
a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
(36:22):
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
I am Younger, your host for this journey. I was
a hopeless love aholic but just could not get my
love to work. Then, after a series of heartbreaks and
deep heartache, I finally got clear about what love is
and what it is not. I want to share some
(00:22):
of what I've learned about love aholism. Welcome to the
Our Spot, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with
I Heart Radio. You know, sometimes I wake up in
(00:48):
the morning and I feel absolutely empowered. I feel divine
and blissful, and I think that I am the next
best thing to melt it butter on a pancake. And
then other days I wake up and I am truly
(01:11):
the wretched of the earth. I can remember every mistake
that I've made, every poor decision. I look out into
the world and I see road kill, and I think
that's my fault. The rising cost of gas, that's my fault.
Somebody's kids lost their tooth on the playground, and everything
(01:33):
is my fault. I don't think I'm alone in this experience.
But here's the distinction. On those days that I'm down
on myself, beating up on myself forgetting about all the
glorious work that I've done to heal myself. On those
days when I feel like I've totally missed the mark
(01:57):
and I need to go back and start all over.
Rather than accepting that to be the truth, I observe
it and I say, wow, I wonder where that's coming from.
Oh my goodness, look at what's up for me today.
But I'm also aware that there are many of us
who have those bad days and get stuck in them,
(02:21):
get stuck in what we haven't done, what we can't do,
what we don't do, and we use that as a
bat to beat ourselves down. So if you're one of
those people that are stuck in a bad day that
has been going on for sixteen years, I want to
say this, you can only solve the problem from the
(02:43):
level from what you're looking at it. If you're down
on yourself, down in the sub sub sub basement, looking
at yourself, you can only solve the problem from the
sub sub basement. If you're in the you know, the
dungeon of your life looking at yourself, you can only
(03:04):
solve the problem from the dungeon. And what many of
us don't understand is those days when you're down there,
it's simply because there's something coming up that you're ready
to heal. Now, you don't have to heal it by yourself.
You don't have to heal it on your own. You
(03:25):
don't even have to know what it is. But you
have to know that the dungeon days, the sub sub
basement days, the beat yourself up with a bad days,
those are days when something's coming up that needs to
be healed, and sometimes you need help. My caller today
(03:47):
has been in the dungeon of the sub basement and
she's done a great job, but today she's reaching out
for help. Let's take a greetings, beloved, welcome to the
R spot. How can I support God assists you today
(04:08):
as you face your relationship challenge, issue, problem, whatever it is.
Thank you so much, Really appreciate, appreciate you're taking time
to speak with me. Um. The relationship issue is with myself.
I think I understand that when I don't have a
relationship that I'm happy with with myself and I pretend
(04:31):
that outwardly, it always crumbles. And so my relationship problems
with me tell me how it manifests. Because so very
often a relationship issue is a relationship with yourself. It
just shows up with other people. But tell me how
that shows up in your life. Where do you see it?
(04:51):
How do you see it? How does it show up?
It manifests as me being a people pleaser, taking on
roles where I'm be more forgiving than my inner body
is really wanting me to to listen to in the
manifest of me not being able to trust myself as well.
So I may say yes knowing the answer is no.
(05:12):
I may want to say something where I I'm not happy,
and I may withhold that because I want to be
in trouble and I don't actually feel maybe that I
have taken up space. Okay, wow, I want you to
hear this with all of the love and respect, just
(05:32):
in my listening of what you are sharing. I often
say to my students that self diagnosis is misdiagnosis because
you you have diagnosed your problem and come up with
the solution. You. I don't understand why you're calling me.
(05:53):
You know you got I'm calling because I know the
problem is trauma and all of your speaking and your diagnosis,
I heard you say this, I don't want to be
in trouble. That's a trauma response. So somewhere in your experience,
(06:20):
perhaps growing up. It had to be growing up saying
what you wanted to say or what you needed to say,
standing up for yourself, asking for what you needed or want.
It wasn't met with warm and fuzzies. Well there was
no one to ask a young there was no one there.
(06:44):
I I My traumas are um sexual traumas and family
members um absent moms, um absent dad. Both have used
drugs and so yes, it's trauma, but not not that
I don't want to get in trouble, but I want
to find a place where I fit in al though,
you know, I want to release that guilty and shame
of not sitting in and I want to be able
(07:05):
to translate that into me being able to have family,
village people who want to stick around me despite me
maybe not having a mom and dad for example, or
me uh sometimes not always being um able to say no.
But mostly it's trauma from like not not having anyone
(07:26):
to ask, And in my attempts to examine that and
try to put it down, I guess that's stuff like no.
But I also tried to take on too much like
I was a victim as a child. You know, I
should have been nurtured, But that's not a Is that
a God given right that I'm supposed to be nurtured?
You know it makes me play that will advocate with myself.
So let me ask you a question, beloved, thank you
(07:48):
for your sharing. Where can you imagine? Where do you
think that the trauma exists within you? Where is it?
My My heart hurts because I didn't have someone to
comfort me. In fact, I had someone kind of turning
the cheek on me. And it hurts my feelings a lot.
But my heart aches about it because it is reality
(08:11):
and my mom could only get what she could get.
And you know, at the end of the day, life
does happen that way. My heart aches with so your
heart aches, and then you have the thought that tells
you why your heart is aching? Is that? Is that?
Would that be? So? Are you open to the possibility
that your trauma exists in your mind? Now that doesn't
(08:35):
mean you don't have a physical or an emotional response
to it, But are you open to the possibility that
your trauma exists in your mind? And I do think
it's in my mind. So are you open to the possibility?
I want you to hear this from a place of
loving concern and respect. Are you open to the possibility
(08:57):
that you are thinking with a trauma to eyes and
disease mind? Exactly it? Okay, breathe, I want you to
breathe through that. Tell me, tell me what's happening right now?
Tell me what's happening. Yeah, it's sad that I know
this and I can't do anything about it with Wait
(09:19):
a minute, Wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute,
wait a minute. Breath. Take a breath, Take a breath.
Hear me. I want you to hear this. Good. You
are thinking with a traumatized and a diseased mind. There
(09:41):
is no way that you can figure this out because
the same traumatized mind that remembers the trauma is the
same traumatized mind you're trying to use to get the results.
So you're diagnosing yourself with a traumatized mind. You're writing
the prescription with the traumatized mine. You're questioning, judging, challenging
(10:08):
yourself with a traumatized mind. Can you receive what I
just said to you? And so what I want you
to hear me say from a place of loving concern
and respect is stop it. Just stop it, just stop it.
That's it. We'll talk about that when we come back.
(10:39):
Welcome back to the our spot. Let's pick up where
we left off. First of all, your first prescription is,
I don't care if you're talking to yourself, to your son,
to anybody. You must speak in ten words of less okay,
because what happens is you're spinning. You start and then
(11:01):
you go in and in and in and in. You're
you're on a hamster. You you're circulating the on the
thoughts over and over. That's how you escape the trauma. Yeah,
you have to stop it. And the way you're going
to stop your mind from running it shut your mouth.
(11:22):
Tell me what you hear me saying, because I don't
want you to. I don't want to hamste in the
wheel to start spinning. Tell me what you hear me saying.
You don't have to repeat the words that I said,
but I want to know what you are hearing me
say to you. What I'm hearing is that I am
finding ways to cope with my trauma and so many
(11:44):
words going in and out of what you know, what
you feel, and I really just need to be still.
Stop going down this rabbit hole of trauma. If you
want to stop it. You got to stop trying to
escape it. Okay, now that's not what I said, but
that's what you heard, and that's what I needed to know.
(12:06):
I needed to hear what you what you were listening to,
because I sense that you don't hear. You listen to
what's playing in your mind, and your mind has picked
up little tidbits of information and and things in your
quest to try to help yourself. How brilliant are you
(12:27):
that you said, Okay, I need to do something. Let
me do something. The challenges the same mind that holds
the trauma. And we've all been traumatized to some degree
or another. But it sounds to me like you've got
a physical imprint and impression of trauma, and emotional imprint
and impression of trauma, and then the mental imprint and
(12:50):
impression of trauma, and you're trying to figure out how
to heal or grow or develop up physically, mentally and emotionally.
But you're using the same traumatized mind. So what you're doing, beloved,
is you're re traumatizing yourself. I'm doing this and I
can't get it done. I get so far and it
(13:12):
doesn't happen, and I don't trust myself and I and
you re traumatize in yourself. So here's another possibility for
you to consider. First, let me make sure that that
made sense to you. Does that make sense? Because I
I want to be very mindful that you don't hear
me saying you're doing it wrong. No, I don't hear
(13:36):
that I'm doing it wrong. I hear that. That's ten words.
I don't hear you say I'm doing it wrong. Period.
Does you're getting ready to get on that train again
and go into an explanation. No explanation is required ten
words or less, otherwise you're gonna be on the train,
riding yourself into your triggers. You terrify yourself. That's what
(14:03):
it feels like to me, because you're so afraid that
you're not going to get it and you're not going
to do it wrong. I don't know if any of
that lands for you, but that's what it feels like
to me. Oh, yes, I am. I'm terrified that I'm
not going to get it right. Um, and I think
it's because like I thought this long, Uh, I'm terrified
(14:30):
that I'm not going to get it right. Period. That's
ten words. You don't need more than that, but I
want you to be aware of it. This is because
you've got to start catching this because even if you
get outside help, you're not going to be with them
all the time. There's still work that you have to do. Yeah,
you said a very clear statement, I'm terrified that I'm
(14:53):
not going to get it right now. Attached to that
thought is a feeling. It's the terror. It maybe the sadness,
and maybe the shame and maybe the guilt. But there
are things attached to that feeling. But rather than sit
and be present with the feeling, you jump right into
(15:15):
the next thing that justifies and talks about what it
is that you're feeling. You can't talk about your feelings,
You've gotta feel him. But what that does is it
really bypasses the feeling and takes you into the traumatized
mind that probably retriggers something that you didn't get right
(15:37):
and suffered for. Is that making sense to you now
that we know you're thinking with a traumatized mind that
remembers the trauma. That traumatized mind well use as your
speaking to re traumatize you. And that's why you're on
(15:59):
this perpetual circle of never seeming to get to where
you want to go, because you can only solve the
problem at the level at which you see it. So
you see the problem as no parents, not trusting yourself,
doing this, and not getting that. That's how you see
the problem, So you can only solve it from that level.
(16:19):
I want to take you to another level. Here's a level.
You're trying to parent yourself, but you've never been parented,
so you don't know how to do it. You're trying
to parent yourself. You're trying to raise yourself, guide yourself,
nurture yourself, nourish yourself, protect yourself, teach yourself. You're trying
(16:40):
to do all of that and it was never done
for you. So how do you expect to know how
to do that? I don't know how. I don't know
what I'm doing the thing I got. But since you
were never parented, you may not have an appropriate skill
set to do the parenting. And you have parented your
son of the best of your ability to give him
(17:02):
much of what you didn't have. And so when you
look at a traumatized mind and an empty parenting basket,
let's say, and the traumatized heart, the fact that you
would say a relationship issue is with myself. It's the
way the deceptive intelligence is re traumatizing you. Because if
(17:27):
I had a uh, if I had a good relationship
with myself, I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't do that.
I wouldn't be this, and this wouldn't happen. You need
outside intervention. Tell me what you've heard me say. Doesn't
matter what the words are. I just want to know
what you've heard me say. I'm my worst enemy in
(17:51):
terms of trying to hear my trauma because I'm doing
it from the trauma of mind and trying to parself
without parent you know, being parents, said, is not the
way that I'm going to get the satisfaction that I'm
looking for in terms of not uh feeling that this
trauma is impacting you know, my growth. Yeah good, Okay,
(18:17):
that's much better than the first time what I said.
So you've got a lot of information that's being processed
through a disease mind. Traumatized mind not a bad thing,
but I want you to understand it is unkind and
(18:41):
unloving to expect yourself to do something that you've never
been taught how to do. You're trying to heal yourself
and you've never really even been taught how to hear
yourself or take care of yourself. So I'm going to
give you this recommendation and encourage you to really hold
(19:05):
your feet to the fire when it comes to speaking
more than ten words. Okay, so tell me what you
know now that you didn't know when you call me.
I know that it is not my fault for the
way that I feel. Period. That's a sentence. Next thought,
I'm here because I'm ready to change the way that
I've been feeling. Period. Take a breath. Next thought, I
(19:31):
have a traumatized mind, and I have to be mindful
of not letting it be in control. Period. Good. Now,
take the breath. And I don't want you to say
you have a traumatized mind, because you have a brilliant mind.
The distinction is this, not that I have a traumatized mind,
(19:53):
but that my mind has been traumatized. Period. Yes, if
I'm not careful, it will control me and retraumatize me. Period.
Do you hear the difference? Yes, But you've done well.
Good for you. Thank you, even if in your mind
(20:15):
you have to say blah blah blah. Period. When you
find yourself down in six eighty seven words period. I
remember h m hmmm, or just say let me stop
right here, m hm, and I want to hear from
you okay, yes, thank you. Very often we don't realize
(20:45):
how upset we are with ourselves. We're upset with ourselves
that we didn't do it right. We're upset with ourselves
about our bad behavior. We've done so much and things
are still unfolding as they always have. Well, here is
something to consider. You cannot clear an upset with the
(21:06):
object of the upset. So if you are upset with you,
you are not going to be able to clear that upset.
Those are the days when you need help. When you're
in your pattern, you need help. When you're beating yourself up,
when you need help, and most of all, if you
(21:26):
are diagnosing yourself, you need help. And my next caller
is learning all about healing. We'll talk to her when
we come back. Welcome back to the our spot. I
(21:49):
am e Yanla, your host for this incredible journey into
the bowels and the belly and the heart of relationships
now out. I did a show some time ago with
a woman named Christie, and the nature of her relationship
with her son had shifted, but she hadn't, so we
(22:14):
talked about some of the nuances of parenting an adult child. Well,
my caller, Christie is checking in, so I want to
find out from her how things have gone and how
she's grown and what she's learned. So let's check in
with Christine. Hey ms, Christie, how are you doing this?
(22:38):
I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good? I'm good.
So catch me up. When I last spoke to you,
you were living with your son as a result of
some health challenges, and you were wanting to get out
and you were wanting to resolve some challenges with him.
So tell me where you are today and what's going on.
(23:00):
So just no, from the bottom of my heart, every day,
all day, I thank you for everything that you have done.
Where am I today? I am in Alabama with my
UM cousins, an older cousins who I call aunt and
m her daughter UM. And I realized along the way
that I made I feel like I made a mistake UM,
(23:23):
because there was a riff there with my son and
I for a while, his girlfriend, you know, started having
feelings or issues about me be my being there and
had put like a time limit on it and said,
you know, she wanted me to be in my own Well,
if I wasn't able to move out by August and
(23:44):
she would move away, and then they would you know,
he would move with me and then they would see
each other whatever. So I didn't want that to be
the issue. So at the end of the day, I
just um M. I was scheduled for breast cancer surge.
The insurance canceled like a few days before that, so
it was like a few things happened back to back,
(24:06):
so I ended up moving. Um or I'm sorry, calling
my cousin to say I just needed to leave Callahassee
because I didn't, you know, felt like this end was coming.
Still not employed, can't seem to I always have business ideas.
I can't seem to get any of those to catch
or move the motivation along the way. Because there's so
(24:26):
much going on, I get depressed. So I just decided
to come to Alabama and came to Alabama to work
on the medical aspect because I didn't want to have
half or need my son's girlfriend because he works ten
hour days to help me through after surgery, especially if
she doesn't want me to be there. Um. I hate
(24:48):
being at this point in my life where I'm forty
five and nowhere to go, and I just feel like I,
you know, at my at my breaking point. Oh, Mr Christie,
mm hmm. I hear a lot going on here, but
where I want to focus, if you are open to it,
(25:11):
is on this experience of cancer. Yes. I heard you
say you're having surgery for breast cancer tomorrow. Yes, ma'am
six am. I decided to do the whole complete mispect
to me, so I wouldn't have to so I could
be free. I just see it as like I'm I
feel like I'm I guess, like burdensome in a bad
(25:34):
situation and I'm living with this one and that one
and trying to like get up and I just can't
get up. It's just the whole thing is one thing.
I can't really look for it or look for a job,
but you know, I just it's just just a lot.
So I just want to be preistances I can be,
Mr Christie. A job should be the last thing on
(25:58):
your mind. You are fighting for your life, right, But
I don't have an income and that's the problem. No,
that's not the problem. The problem is you think that
you have to be of the solution, and you don't.
You're expecting something of yourself right now that is totally impossible. Ms. Christie,
(26:25):
you are facing the possibility of losing both of your
breast at six am tomorrow morning. Why are you worried
about an income? You got to know that God's got
your back. You've got to know that God's got your
back and that you will have what you need if
(26:48):
you stop trying to make it happen. Ms. Christie, Your life,
your life is more important, even if it's not the
life you want right now. If you have a life,
you can build it into what it is you desire.
But right now, you are fighting a disease body with
(27:09):
a disease mind. You've got to focus on your healing.
You've got to focus on recovery. You have to focus
on that. Yeah, right, And I heard you say that
you do want to be with your something, but his
girlfriend doesn't want you there any longer. So when I
go back now, I went back for one day and
(27:31):
it was fun, and then I went back for two
weeks earlier this month, she was gone for a part
of the time, and um, when she came back. You know,
we were always cordial, but I can feel I don't know.
I'm able to feel stuff, so I can feel the
friction and the you know, the dislike which hadn't said
(27:51):
anything to her or whatever. But I don't I don't know. Well,
it's a common situation, you know. One of y'all is
the other woman. Either his heart is with you and
she's the other woman, or she his heart is with
her and you're the other woman. So that's normal. It's
hard to have two queens on the same throne, and
(28:13):
the throne right now it is your son's heart, and
that's how it feels. Come here with me, and I'm
gonna hold you. I'm not gonna let you go in
this process. I want you to say this with me.
I need help. I need help. The help I need
is what The help I need is God? Yeah, and
(28:34):
what else family and support? Help I need is mental health.
The help I need is somebody to take care of me.
You're facing the possibility of losing both of your breast tomorrow.
You're not gonna be able to use your arms. How
are you gonna feed yourself? I know? And then I'm
(28:55):
around here, are you with people? Well? Because you're thinking
the disease mind in a disease body. When the body
is diseased and you're speaking about the experience of cancer,
it influences everything, so you can't see correctly, you can't
(29:15):
hear because you need help. You you need help. Is
your eighty two year old aunt gonna take care of
you after the surgery? Mom My cousin is whisky said
she's gonna do a lot of it. But the point
was that my aunt would be home, you know, all days,
so if I needed something, she can like get it
(29:36):
out the kitchen or bring me some water or things
like that. But I don't want to depend because you
need help. You can't you you will be dependent, So
get that out of your brain. I don't want to
depend upon. That's a disease thought. That's a disease thought.
I don't want to depend on. Until you heal, You're
(29:57):
gonna have to be dependent, So stop not liking it.
Stop it. You need help. You need help to get
you through recovery from your surgery. You need help to
be connected to grace and mercy to give you what
(30:18):
you need. I want to encourage you to surrender the
resistance of how it shows up. You need help and
the job ain't it right? Now? I have Bill I
know I do too, is worrying about the bill, going
(30:40):
to get it paid. What's more important, you're healing. But
I want you to hold this thought because my concern
is tomorrow morning, at six o'clock, they're gonna put some
drugs in your body to put you to sleep, and
they're going to remove, uh, your breast. That's my concern.
(31:03):
Is your son gonna be there for the surgeon? I
asked them and I got, uh, you know, wanted my
granddaughter to have an appointment, so that appointment happened to
be tomorrow. So I told him to just go ahead
and take care of her. And he's supposed to come
this weekend if he can. But you know whatever, So
I can suspect that you're feeling quite alone right now.
(31:25):
I do. I was always a people person and always
the one who's trying to hype everybody up and be
positive and optimistic, and that has just not been the
case with me during his journey. So tell me where
are you and your faith walk and your religious foundation?
Where do you sit in that? Where what are you
and your Catholic Baptists? You know nothing? So I say
(31:50):
it's Christian. But I don't know because I I follow
your teaching, which is like unity to me, unity teaching. Okay,
so you done. You then you know about Christ, you
know about Jesus, you know about the Holy Spirit, you
know about that God is the greatest. But I understand
when you say creator and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay,
(32:12):
Well you know I talked to a broad audience. I
want everybody to feel welcome. I don't care if you
call it Harry, it don't matter to me. I want
you to holess thought and I want you to say
it with me, and I want to see if you
can feel it in your body. God, say that God,
I surrender myself to you, take care of everything. I
(32:36):
surrender myself to you, take care of everything. And when
you pray that prayer, when you speak those words, you've
got to know that, no matter what it looks like,
God is taken care of it. Because you're focused in
your attention has to be on healing your body, and
(32:58):
that's going to create a major, massive shift in who
you are as a woman. I know that has to
be your focus and your priority to heal that, to
be with that, to observe that, to grow in that
to sit in that you don't have time to be
worrying about a job and a storage unit, and you
haven't made any mistakes. You have not, you haven't. You
(33:24):
were thinking what a disease? Minds right, grace, give yourself grace.
I want you to focus on your healing. Ms Christie,
I thank you so much for calling me back. We
can't even talk about you and your son because we're
not even gonna raise that issue. We're gonna focus on
your healing. Okay, yes, ma'am, Thank you. Ms. Christie, Thank
(33:47):
you so much for your time. There comes a moment
in our lives when we have to surrender to the
divine and trust and believe and know that it will
be taken care of. Because there comes a moment when
our humanness reaches its limits, but the Divine is always
(34:08):
there to open us up to greater possibility. Where where
where in our teaching, our our education, Where in our training,
our conditioning, our programming as human beings are we taught
how to move through some of the challenges that we
face in life. We're not. Ms. Christie is right there. God,
(34:31):
I surrender myself to you take care of everything. I
don't know how to do this. I don't know how
to do this. So Ms Christie can learn how to
be a better parent to her son when she learns
how to be a better child to the father. That's
a lesson that some of us really need to learn.
I know for myself, I had never been parented at
(34:54):
the physical level, so I didn't know how to be
parented by the divine If I was and parented by
my father, who I could see, my mother, my stepmother,
my aunt, my uncle who I could see, I had
no idea how to be parented by my source that
I couldn't see. So many of us I don't know
(35:14):
how to parent because we haven't been parented. And if
we haven't been parented at the physical level, we must
learn how to be parented by the Divine God. I
surrender Mrs Christie to you. She doesn't know how to
do this and I don't know how to help her.
(35:39):
All I can do is lover and surrender her to you.
God take care of everything. I hope this has been
helpful to someone, And if you have a question about
this or any other relationship issue, you can call me
live at seven seven five three zero seven seven seven
(36:00):
and SUCCE eight. Now be sure to follow me on
social media for all of the calling times and until then,
stay in peace and not pieces. The R Spot is
a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
(36:22):
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Host
Iyanla Vanzant
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